He has reified the abstract concept of gravity and attributed casual [sic] powers to the reified concept. It is easy to fall into that hole, and we should all watch out for it.
—Barry Arrington, June 18, 2015 at 3:10 pm
I hear from intelligent-design proponents that information is neither matter nor energy, is conserved by material processes, and is created only by intelligence. Would you please explain how they determined that intelligence is real, and not merely an abstraction? I’d like to see you contrast it with gravity.
P.S.–I’d forgotten about the theory of intelligent falling.
First, what’s with the unusual usage of a ‘dash’ in ‘intelligent-design proponents’ and why not capitalise IDists to designate those who support the Intelligent Design Movement (IDM)?
There are indeed stubborn anti-IDist, anti-theists who deserve little platform or time for discussion.
Second, are you unintelligent, Tom? If not, then how do you know you possess intelligence/are intelligent? It sounds like you think of yourself as stupid (i.e. unintelligent), which is of course not very flattering.
Gregory: there is no universal acceptance, either on this forum, or outside it, for your idiolect of capitalisation and other punctuational signifiers.
It’s as pointless complaining that other people don’t use your system as it would be to complain about people posting in Russian. Sure, it would mean that non-Russian speakers couldn’t understand it, but that’s the hand we are dealt when we don’t use a language that someone else is using.
Live with it ffs.
eliZabeTh, pLEasE stOp being iGnoraNt of coMMon coNvenTion fOr YouR oWn siLlY selF-PreSeRvaTion saKE. iT Is bORinG!
Others here have already agreed with the logic of capitalisation that I’ve suggested. I don’t really care if you do or not.
And I’m not complaining, I’m merely asking. If you want to defend your atheist ally from giving his own answer to a simple question, then your Blog is merely a dictator’s plea for control.
Are you simply unintelligent, Elizabeth, thinking ‘intelligence’ might not be ‘real’ too?
But Arrington is wrong about this, right? We do know that gravitational attraction is “caused” (in some sense of “cause”) by how mass distorts space-time, such that objects always move along geodesic lines in curved 4D space. Or, if you prefer, general relativity says that gravity just is the curvature of 4D space. What we don’t know (or at least, what I don’t know) is precisely how mass induces 4D spatial curvature.
Be that as it may, the more general point is that ID, as a putative scientific theory, needs a theory of intelligence that has nothing to do with what we do know about intelligence right now. I say that because what we know about intelligence is based on cognitive psychology, cognitive ethology, and computer science. But whatever the Designer is, Its intelligence is only analogous with the kinds of intelligence we do know about. And the problem with analogies is that they only work if you can specify the extent to which the analogy does and also does not work. If you can’t do that, then it’s not an analogy but a metaphor.
I know it’s a widespread belief in the ID movement that ID theory does not rely on a mere analogy between organisms and artifacts. I find myself wholly unconvinced; I think that the organism-artifact analogy is as central to ID theory as it was to the Argument from Design in antiquity.
In fact, I suspect that one of the bait-and-switch tactics deployed by the ID movement is to use computer graphics of biochemical processes to make those processes seem much more tidy, neat, precise, and mechanistic than they really are.
The designer analogy breaks down because there is no way to design biology.
Well that’s easy, because intelligence is necessary to explain life. All can see that, and, if they say otherwise, it’s because they’re evil materialists in denial.
Glen Davidson
Yup. This point rarely penetrates. Keep making it!
I have no idea what you are getting at, here, Gregory.
Yes, I think intelligence is real.
Yes. The low res graphic currently heading UD is a case in point.
Chemistry is wetware rather than software. When Mike Elzinga was here, he would often point out the problem of modelling chemistry as airplane parts.
the simplest demonstration that comes to my mind is protein folding, which is still a bit beyond the edge of our fastest computers. Among other problems, there is no way to know if a solution is the best possible solution.
If you cannot model the behavior of a molecule, you cannot design biology, except by methods that mimic evolution. The problem becomes exponentially greater when you try to model the interaction of molecules. It’s not unlike the problem of approaching the speed of light.
So if you move away from divine poofery, you have a failed analogy.
KN said:
You’re doing exactly what Mr. Arrington warns against. “Curved space time” is a conceptual model that describes the interactive regularities of certain kind of phenomena in certain situations. It is a descriptive model. Saying “mass warps curved space-time” reifies a description as the cause. How does “curved space time” affect trajectories? All anyone can offer is a description of the effect, not an explanation of how the effect is achieved. Descriptions are not causes. You say mass distorts space time? How does it do so? You may offer an image of a bowling ball on a rubber sheet; how does it accomplish the distorting? There is no “how”, only a description of what occurs.
Except human intelligent design isn’t an analogy or a metaphor. It’s an example.
You only see it as bait and switch because you insist they claim to be selling something they never actually claim to be selling, and in fact have repeatedly insisted they are not selling.
What heterodox rock did this person crawl out from under?
Yeah, that’s exactly how it appears. You simply have no clue, Elizabeth.
Tom English sounds like a complete idiot questioning the ‘reality’ of ‘intelligence.’ That’s the kind of ‘skeptic’ that represents the mass at TSZ.
That’s right. I think they are quite deeply self-deceived about what they are doing. They insist that all talk of “codes” and “machines” and even “languages” is a literal description of biochemical processes, and I think that it is an analogy. It is not an unhelpful analogy, but it is an analogy that contrasts quite strikingly with, say, Stephen Talbott’s emphasis on the purposiveness of the whole organism.
(I mention Talbott here for two reasons: (a) his work is on-line and easily accessible; (b) his defense of teleology has enamored him to many at Uncommon Descent, though I think they are deeply confused if they think Talbott would be any friend to ID.)
Think of it this way, maybe: organisms have intrinsic purposiveness; they are the source of their own goals. Machines and artifacts have extrinsic purposiveness; they have the goals and functions that have been assigned to them by their makers. In order for us to even ask the question as to how life was designed, or who designed it, we first have to see life as designed. But to see life as designed requires seeing the intrinsic purposiveness of organisms as being exactly like the extrinsic purposiveness of machines (which of course are designed by human intelligence).
I don’t see life as designed, not because I am inured to the reality of teleology, but because I don’t see the extrinsic purposiveness of artifacts as being much like the intrinsic purposiveness of organisms.
Be honest, okay KN. You don’t see life as ‘designed’ (lowercase Abrahamic theist design argument) BECAUSE you’re an atheist, or as you’ve called yourself here, a secular Jew. At least can you not admit that much?
p.s. for Elizabeth’s hyper-sensitive imagination, the ‘Be honest’ request does not mean I suspect KN of not communicating ‘in good faith [sic]’, but rather simply admonishing him to do so in his response
Where has Mike got to? I miss him!
Oh yes, I have no intelligence today. But I do have sleepiness. Surely you know of the dormitive principle.
Got into a fight with someone here (I thought the other person had a legitimate beef–might have been overdone, can’t rightly remember), left. Has been at Panda’s Thumb some, has taken an occasional potshot at TSZ commenters there (churning old material was his complaint, I think–true enough all too commonly), but mostly his typical comments.
Glen Davidson
Gregory,
Why do you have to be so childishly abusive? Please stop.
Alan,
Why do you have to be so adolescently atheistic? Please stop.
The adolescence thing I will keep going until I can no longer get away with it. Atheism is the null hypothesis. I don’t insist you adopt my philosophy. Do me the reciprocal favour.
That surprises me hugely. I was in fact counting on you, considering what you do for a living, to explain that intelligence is a hypothetical construct, and to do it better than I would. To my knowledge, everyone investigating intelligence in the fields of ethology and psychology recognizes that the construct must be given an operational definition.
What I’m really driving at with the post is the very simplest reason that ID bores the hell out of me. It’s critically dependent on sloppy “everyone knows what intelligence is” thinking.
Absolutely agree with Tom here. Aiguy (subsequently posting as RDFish) made this point eloquently and often. “Intelligence” is a vague comparative descriptive that remains undefined.
Now if Lizzie had talked about sentience or awareness…
Alan Fox,
+2.
Information is obviously real, not an abstraction. Only a committed materialist would deny that. Conservation-of-information theorems prove that material processes do not create information. You can see that you create information when you impart design to matter, and that you can design because you are intelligent. You are intelligent because you have intelligence. Therefore intelligence is something real and nonmaterial that causes new information to come into existence.
It just shows you are confused, mixed up, undereducated (especially wrt philosophy & theology/worldview) and in the end nihilistic because death to you (not so long away, given your apparent age) is the end of everything.
This site promotes skepticism. But it doesn’t in any way make clear what to be skeptical or non-skeptical about, even including skepticism itself.
I’m not defending IDism, or of course Barry Arrington because he has demonstrated himself as an arrogant fool, who embraces censorship, bullies opponents & rejects freedom of speech in defense of IDism. But, Alan, you score even lower on the ‘humanist’ scale, now ever defending the view that you are not ‘intelligent’ because ‘intelligence’ cannot be (empirically) proven ‘real’ (if that is what you are even trying to defend). This site is a sad place because of views like yours, i.e. atheist ‘skepticism’.
Death will be the end of me, Gregory, not everything.
I’d propose the antonym of skepticism as gullibility. Is there something we should be gullible about?
One thing you have made clear is your antipathy to the bogus concept of “Intelligent Design” and I commend you for it.
Now you are just being kind.
You misunderstand, I think. I reject the idea of “Intelligence” as a coherent concept. It is a semantic issue. I think “intelligence” is bandied around all too freely without any agreement of what it means, which is not much, in my view.
Well, I hear what you say and I’m grateful for your contribution.
You sound like someone who is afraid to consider the question, and who displaces the fear by attacking the questioner. Do please show me wrong.
Tom English,
You simply can’t be wrong according to yourself. You’re self-righteously atheistic. You’ve shown your ‘skeptic’ cards already. That’s typical. I’m not questioning that.
I already addressed ‘the question’ here: http://theskepticalzone.fr/?p=28098&cpage=1#comment-69307
And Wiener kicks your apathy already too.
Again, I’m not defending B.A. But any idiot who would suggest ‘intelligence is not real’ is simply lost. Will you eventually come back to the light?
I dropped my keys over there, but I search under the light because I can see better.
Gregory,
Have you given your definition of “intelligence” anywhere, yet? How do you define intelligence?
And yet, biologists cannot help but refer to and describe virtually everything in biology in terms of “extrinsic purposiveness,” as you say, and reverse-engineer it in order to bring some of that apparent biological design into our designs. It seems to me you have to work really hard to not see life and organisms as designed in the same fundamental way that humans design mechanisms.
That’s wrong, William. The hard work is looking closely at living organisms and realising how different they are from anything people construct.
Alan Fox,
Whose thread is this, Alan? Whose responsibility to give a defn? Please stop being an atheist wimp & look for deeper principles. I addressed Tom English’s silliness about the ‘reality of intelligence’ head-on. The burden is on him to now try to excuse himself for being an apologist for stupidity. Why get in his way?
Gregory,
So you can’t define “intelligence”, Gregory? No shame in that.
Tom is correct. Being deep does not change shit to gold.
Alan Fox,
So, you prefer to try to excuse your fellow atheist from taking responsibility for making an idiotic claim, asking an idiotic question? No harm in that.
I say “intelligence” is a vapid concept. It is my opinion based on the apparent inability of anyone to produce a generally useful definition. Tom, I believe, has expressed a similar view. I may be wrong about that and Tom can speak for himself as he wishes. You can rise in my estimation by explaining, as briefly as you wish, why you think I am wrong. Or not. This is not the Spanish Inquisition.
What did I say about IDists dropping the information theory arguments!
The inability to answer such questions without circularity or axioms is why IDists should drop information theory.
The issue with respect to biology is whether a configuration of such intricate complexity (or anything comparable complexity) is consistent with expectation. Those are questions that can be framed in terms of empirical science rather than the engineering abstractions of information (which are subjective).
I accept that human intelligence is real and different from computer intelligence. I cannot prove it, maybe no one can — and such questions are formally separate from whether OOL is probable or not if there isn’t some sort of cybernetic-type direction. Oh, that’s the other thing, with respect to objects claimed to be designed, how do we distinguish whether the proximal mechanism was a robotic factory or a human intelligence? What we can say empirically or theoretically is whether Nature (as we understand it) is expected to act like a cybernetically oriented machine.
Beyond that, the questions become metaphysical. Too much conflation of the metaphysical with the empirical in the ID discussion.
At least the creationist ideas are forthright in stating some of their metaphysics as faith assumptions rather than empirical claims.
Not to put you on the spot Sal, but what do you mean by “intelligence”? When you use the phrase “human intelligence” that is, in context, not controversial. We can attempt to compare human cognitive ability by testing individuals and their competence in specific tasks, challenges or “intelligence tests”. But can we pit a human against a machine, a dolphin or a Caledonian crow?
ETA
PS There are quite a few unanswered comments that you might like to respond to in earlier threads.
“I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.”
― Bill Watterson
Of course, the idea that information is neither matter nor energy did not originate with intelligent-design proponents.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/wiener/
EDIT: OOPS! I see Gregory was there before me. Oh well, enjoy the link. 🙂
I was a grad student investigating artificial intelligence, so called, back when it splashed across the covers of the big news magazines. People would ask if I thought machines would ever be really intelligent. I didn’t care much for the question. So I took to responding, “Intelligent like a cat, or intelligent like a dog?” Of course, I was tossing on its ear the eternal question, “Which are smarter, cats or dogs?” Everyone thought it was just a silly dismissal of the original question.
I suppose, in retrospect, that my undergrad studies in psychology made it easier for me than for most people to think about such stuff. I was acquainted with the classic “The Misbehavior of Organisms” (1961), by Keller and Marian Breland. (I recommend it highly. It’s brilliantly written, and quite amusing. To fully appreciate the break from orthodoxy, you need to know that the authors had worked with B.F. Skinner at Harvard.) I traveled with the psychology club to Marian Breland’s IQ Zoo in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She gave the introduction to a scientist-oriented tour of the facility, and then handed us off to trainers, who repeatedly drove home the point that the what and how of training an organism depend heavily on the species.
Cats and dogs are qualitatively different in their behaviors, and it makes no sense at all to suggest that the difference is due to different quantities of a single thing called intelligence.
When I taught artificial intelligence, one of my students, who was doing doctoral work in education, put me onto the theory of multiple intelligences. I don’t think of it as good science. But I believe that it is quite useful in highlighting the qualitative differences in what we regard as intelligent in humans. Many ID advocates don’t regard non-human animals as intelligent. So I change my question to: “Intelligent like a physics professor, or intelligent like a professional basketball player?”
I talked with my AI students about vitalism, and drew an analogy to that moment when the spark jumped the gap, and Frankenstein’s assemblage of cadaver parts was filled with the vital essence of life. Living things do live because they have life — right?
It intelligences! It intelligences!
Don’t be silly Salvador.
Information theory doesn’t try to define either information or intelligence.
How about “dead” and “alive”? It smells bad and it ain’t movin’ sounds pretty comparative-descriptive to me.
Just what is the definition of life?
I’ve always wondered why the artificial intelligence folks don’t start off trying to simulate the intelligence of a bacterium and take it from there. Surely intelligence evolved, so why not follow the trail left by evolution?
Alan,
I said, “I cannot prove it, maybe no one can”.
You’re seeing answers trickle in to the questions posed earlier in the Wytch Farm theread. I expect it will take a while to respond to the major points., unless you really believe a few superficial comments will suffice for such in depth topics.
I don’t think it is right to insinuate the ratio of my answers to the number of questions in threads I’m outnumbered 10 to 1 by opponents is evidence of unwillingness on my part to respond.
Oh, well, I guess that was the emergentist in me talking. I think intelligence is as real as gravity – it’s just a property of a more complex system.
And yes, I entirely agree. It’s been a beef of mine for a long time that ID proponents spend so much time talking about Design and so little talking about Intelligence. And my first banning from UD was when I quoted Dembski’s operational definition of Intelligence, which does not exclude evolutionary processes! He deliberately excluded the concept of intention.
I don’t think we need to worry too much. Biologists study living organisms, their structure, function and relatedness. The relatedness, the common factor of DNA almost universally across living organisms as the vehicle for replication is a marker. That some viruses have RNA genomes supports, I think, RNA world as a precursor.
But, rather than deflecting, Could Mung offer his thoughts on “intelligence” as some general attribute of living organisms?